The Shadow of Ararat Read Online Free PDF

against the bones, his eyes milky white. The shipwright clutched at him, his huge scarred hands weak. The prince gently lowered him to the tiles of the doorway.
    "Dromio, what has happened to you? Are you ill, do you have the cough?"
    The ancient-seeming man wearily shook his head, his breath coming in short sharp gasps.
    "My blood is corrupt," he whispered. "I am cursed. All of my workers are sick as well, even my children." Dromio gestured weakly behind him, into the living quarters at the back of the dry dock. "You will see..."
    Maxian, his heart filled with unexpected dread, took a few quick steps to the far end of the room, where small doors led into the quarters of the shipwright and his family. In the dim light of the lamp, he saw only a tangle of bare white feet protruding from the darkness like loaves of bread, but his nose—well accustomed to the stench of the Imperial field hospitals and the Subura clinics—told him the rest. The left side of his face twitched as he suppressed his emotions. Quietly he closed the door to the unexpected mortuary. The sight of the dead filled him with revulsion and a sick greasy feeling. Though he had followed the teachings of Asclepius for nine years, he still could not stand the sight and smell of death. It was worse that the victims were a family that he had known for years.
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    Long ago, when he had been only a child, he had ridden with his father, then the governor of the province of Narbonensis, to see the great undertaking of the Emperor Jaenius Aquila. They had ridden up from the city of Tolosa, where they had lived for three years, through the pine woods and open meadows of the hills above the flowering river valley. Under the green shelter of the pines, they had sat and eaten lunch on a broad granite boulder, their feet in the sun, their heads in the dim greenness. Servants had ridden with them and brought them watered wine, figs, and cooked pies made of lamb, peas and yam. The governor, in his accustomed raiment of rough wool shirt, cotton trousers, and a heavy leather belt, had sat next to his son in companionable quiet. After eating, they sat for a bit, the elder Maxian whittling at a small figurine of Bast with a curved eastern blade.
    Behind them, their Gothic bodyguards sat silently in the shadow of the trees, their fair hair bound in mountain flowers that they had gathered from the margin of the road. The long buttery-yellow slats of sunlight cutting through the trees gleamed from their fish-scale armor. The servants retired to the pack mules and lay down in the sun, broad straw hats shading their faces as they took a quick nap. The young Maxian felt safe and at peace. It was not often that his father took him out of the city or even paid attention to him. This was an unexpected treat.
    After almost an hour, the governor roused himself from his introspection and turned to his son. His bushy white eyebrows bunched together and he rubbed his nose with a broad hand. For a long time he looked at his youngest son, and then, with a masklike expression, gestured for the boy to get up and follow him. They walked to the horses, now held ready by the servants. The Goths filtered out of the trees after them, weapons now loosened in scabbard, quiver, and belt. Together, the small party rode up the road and down into the narrow valley on the other side.
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    Maxian shook his head, clearing the memory away. Cautiously he set the lantern on the mantel of the brick fireplace. With quick hands he lit a small fire in the grate and found another lantern to join the first. Dromio remained on the floor, his breath coming in quick, harsh, gasps. With the room lit, Maxian sorted through the plates, cups, and bowls on the table. He examined them all, quickly but thoroughly. His eye found no sheen of metallic poisons, his nose no odd, acrid stench. He separated those items containing liquids from those containing solids and made a neat pile of each on the broad sideboard. These